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EX-GOVEMOR BRADFOED, 



AT THE DEIIK'ATKIN OF THK 



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SEPTEMBER 17th, 1867. 



Baltimore: 



cox S MONUMENTAIi BOOK AND JOli PRINTINC ESTABLI6IIMKNT, 

Corner of (iay and Lombard Streets. 

1807. 



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EX-GOVERNOR BRADFORD, 



AT THE DEDICATION OF THE 



gntictam l^aiioiuil 0|fm(|icrjr, 



SEPTEMBER 17th, 1867. 



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^allimor£: 

cox's MONUMENTAL BOOK AND JOB PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT, 

Corner of Gay cand Lombard Streets, 

1867. 



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. 6 i 



ADDRESS. 



Wc have met liere to-day, my countrymen, on one of the 
most memorahle of the hattle-fiehls of our civil war, and we 
stand upon a site selected from the midst of it as an aj)pro- 
priate resting place for those Avho here laid down their lives 
as a sacrifice to the cause of free government and a national 
Union. We have come at the instance of the Trustees, to 
whom the subject has been more especially committed, to 
dedicate, by some public and official proceeding, on this the 
anniversary of the battle, the spot so selected, hallowed as it is 
already, with every hill around it, in the heart of tlie nation. 
To unite in this ceremony, the President (jf the United States, 
several members of his Cabinet, members of the national 
Legislature, Governors or other distinguished re{)resentatives 
of most of the States whose citizens formed the army of 
the Union, have honored us with their presence, meaning, 
I am sure, for themselves and those they represent, to express 
by that presence their enduring gratitude to the soldiers 
living or dead who so nobly stood by them in their darkest 
hour of trial. We are pleased, also, to have the opportunity 
of welcoming so many of the distinguished representatives 
of l\)reign Powers, who on tliis occasion have honored us witii 
their presence, reminding us of the peaceful and pleasant 
relations we at present maintain with the other Governments 
of the Avorld. With such a company around me, and this 
vast throng in front, I feel, as you may well imagine, to the 
fullest extent, the responsibility of the duty with which I 
have been honored; an honor for which I am doubtless chiefly 
indebted to the accidental circumstance that I was, to some 
extent, officially connected with the initiation of the cemetery, 
so far at least as the selection of its site was concerned. 

When, directly after the battle of Antietam, an order was 
issued by the Executive of Maryland returning thanks to the 
officers and men of the Union army who had so successfully 
expelled the invader from our State, the Commanding Gen- 
eral of that army, to whom it was transmitted, res[)onded to 
it in terms that challenged our attention. Expressing, on 



"behalf of the Army of the Potomac, their thanks for our 
appreciation of their achievements, and their hopes that no 
rebel army would again pollute our State, he concluded hy 
committing to us the remains of their gallant comrades who 
now rested beneatli its soil. A commission so touchingly 
confided to the people of the State, to say nothing of the 
duty otherwise incumbent on them, could never become with 
them a subject of indiflerence or neglect, and at the first 
meeting, thei'efore, ol their representatives in the General 
Assembly, of January, 1864, an act was passed, authorizing the 
purchase of a part of the battle-field for the reception of its 
dead, and an appropriation of $5,000 placed at the command 
of the Governor for that purpose. Directly thereafter he 
visited the ground, examined it, and after consult.ation with 
prominent citizens, selected this spot, embracing in its view 
the most interesting points of the field of battle, as the 
proper site for the proposed cemetery. Subsequent legisla- 
tion increased the State's appropriation to $15,000; trustees 
were appointed to superintend the work; other States came 
generously forward to participate in the undertaking, and 
by their united efforts it is hoped that the cemetery will 
become in time a })lace worthy the noble purpose to which we 
to-day devote it, and of the nation to whom the charge of it 
should properly belong. 

In recurring to the events, which, in connection with this 
day's proceedings, seem to require a brief notice at our hands, 
it is a subject of congratulation that we can survey them at 
present from a stand point Avliich ought to secure for them a 
calm and dispassionate considerfition. Those influences of 
})assion or policy wliich to some extent are almost inseparable 
from all accounts of military operations, prepared while the 
war itself is raging, are happily, it is to be hoped, at an end, 
or if any still linger, they should find no place on such an 
occasion as this. Yet in leviewing the details of tlie sangui- 
nary conflict to which we are about to refer, we find some 
difficulty, with all the assistance that established peace and 
the lapse of time have furnished, to fix with proper historical 
accuracy some of the facts immediately connected with it, 
more especially the precise force of the Confederate army in 
that action. The number of the Union army engaged 
therein, computed as it has been not only from official re- 
cords, but these records made up after ample time had elapsed 
for the correction of errors, may be considered as authenti- 
cally established. It comprised 87,104 men of all arms. 
In regard to the Confederate force, the accounts arc more 



conflicting. The Union commander, in estimating it at up- 
ward of 97,000 men, basing liis estimate on all the informa- 
tion received irom prisoners, deserters and refugees, has pro- 
bably overstated the number, while, on the other hand, our 
knowledge of the size of that army shortly before it crossed 
into Maryland would warrant us in saying that the strag- 
gling to which its commanders chiefly ascribe its subsequent 
reduction, must have exceeded all straggling ever known in 
the history of armies, if, when it reached tlie Antietam, it 
numbered only 40,000 men. General Lee, I believe, in a re- 
port prepared by him a few days after the action, does say 
that lie went into it with only that number, but in that 
reckoning he must undoubtedly have excluded the three 
divisions which, under A. P. Hill, McLaws and Walker, he 
had several days before detached to different points to aid in 
the investment of Harper's Ferry, that had not returned at 
the commencement of the action on the evening of the 16th, 
but came in most opportunely to his support before its con- 
clusion on the following day. This inference is rendered 
certain by other Southern accounts of the number engaged. 
Confederate historians and newspapers in those days, how- 
ever, under certain circumstances, they might at times, have 
attempted to deceive us by an inflated account of their mili- 
tary power, were by no means given to such an exaggera- 
tion, when the battle was over and they were summing up its 
incidents; yet a leading newspaper at Eichmond, professing 
to give, four days afterward, authentic particulars of the 
battle, declared that it was opened on the IGth of September 
with all their available force, " 60,000 strong." A later, and 
looking to the means of information enjoyed, probably a still 
more reliable authority, a Confederate historian who has pub- 
lished a " Southern History of the War," in describing the 
battle of Antietam, states that for half the day it was fought 
on the Confederate side with "a force of 45,000," and for 
the remaining half, "with no more than an aggregate of 
70,000 men." I think, therefore, that the discrepancies in 
the Confederate accounts of their force have been the result 
of the difierent periods of the action to which they have 
severally referred, some having regard to the time that })re- 
ceded the arrival of their divisions from the neighborhood of 
the ferry, and others including these divisions in their state- 
ments. All things, therefore, considered, and allowing for 
that portion of our force that could not take part in the ac- 
tion, there could not have been much difference in the eftective 
strength of the two armies; but if such a difference did exist, 



6 

and in ftxvor of the Union army, it was more than compen- 
sated to the Confederates, not only hy tlieir choice of position 
hut by other influences, which, justice to all concerned, re- 
quires us now to consider. 

It may be confidently affirmed that at no time during the 
progress of the rebellion did the loyal heart of the country 
doubt its ultimate result ; yet it is equally certain that there 
were seasons when it quivered with emotion as it contem- 
l)lated the results of particular campaigns or despaired for a 
moment at the ])artial failure of long-cherished expeditions. 
At no i)eriod of the war were such feelings more rife than 
during the Summer of 1802. In the early- Spring of that 
year the Peninsular expedition had set forth, and the people 
of the loyal States looked witli anxious solicitude to its re- 
sults and with earnest hopes that it would retrieve the dis- 
asters of the preceding year and place the rebel capitol at 
our command. In every movement of the army in that 
direction, in all its marches, all its toils, its victories and 
reverses from Yorktown to Williamsburgh, on the Chicka- 
hominy, at Fair Oaks, Gaines' Mill, Malvern, and on the 
James, it never took a step to front or rear, that it did not 
carry with it by an inseparable sympathy the throbbing 
heart of the people. So high-wrought had become the popu- 
lar feeling in that connection, that the slightest indication of 
success or defeat in the movements of that army exerted, for 
a time at least, an influence on the public mind entirely dis- 
proportioned to any intrinsic im])ortance attaching to it. It 
was just when this excitement of the public i)ulse Avas at its 
height, after witnessing the heroic struggles of that army 
for so many weeks, with ho]ies and fears alternately pre- 
dominating, that we were suddenly startled by the informa- 
tion that transports were convejdng it back to the neighbor- 
hood of Washington. The people did not pause to consider 
whether or how far ulterior objects justified that movement; 
they saw only in it the confession that for the present Rich- 
mond was beyond our i-each. Incidents connected with it 
revealed to them also the fact — surmises in regard to which 
had already disturbed them — that there was an unfortunate 
difference of opinion between the comnuxnding General of 
that army and the powers that controlled his movements ; the 
reluctance with which he yielded to the peremptory orders 
for the change of his base of operations soon became known 
and excited criticisms unavoidably injurious in their tendency. 
Our friends did not care to inquire, and certainly I shall 
enter into no such inquiry to-day, who was right or who 



1 

/ 

Avere wrong; it was enougli and bad cnongli to know tliat 
the liarmony wliich liad once marked our military councils 
had given place to ill-concealed murmurings and misgivings. 
In this moody condition of the public mind the Army of the 
Potomac, necessarily to some extent influenced by the same 
circumstances, its ranks thinned by the casualties of a series 
of hard-fought battles, and enervated by the climatic influ- 
ences of the peninsula, reached Acquia Creole and Alexan- 
dria in the last week of August. The occurrences which 
there aAvaited it were scarcely of a character to make amends 
for recent disappointments, or to restore that well-poised 
})ublic confidence which was becoming dangerously disturbed. 
About two months before this period the authorities at 
Washington, gathering up the national forces which had 
been operating under several commanders in the Valley and 
other parts of Northern Virginia, had massed and reorgan- 
ized them, under the name of the Army of Virginia, and 
placed them under command of Major-Greneral Pope, who 
had been called from a western department for the purpose. 
Assuming that command he commenced active military 
operations about the middle of July; his proclamation on 
that occasion rang out so cheerily and confidently in tone 
that the ])ublic pricked up its ear and, readily forbearing any 
criticism of style, acce])ted the substance as an assurance of 
a more vigorous policy than had before prevailed, and as fore- 
shadowing a system of tactics which even if we failed before 
Richmond, would compensate us with success elsewhere. 
But on this line too, disappointments awaited us, all the 
keener for the expectations thus excited. Our first reverse 
occurred at Cedar Mountain on the 9th of August, when the 
corps commanded by General Banks, arrayed unsupported 
against three divisions of the rebel army under Jackson, 
Ewell and Hill, most advantageously posted, after accom- 
plishing all that heroic men could against overwhelming odds, 
was forced back with severe loss. The withdrawal simulta- 
neously with this action of the Army of the Potomac from 
the James River, enabled Lee to move a large portion of his 
command to the support of Jackson, who was now in front 
of Pope, and compelled the latter to commence a retrograde 
movement, which continued from point to point until he 
reached the District line. During all the last week of Au- 
gust, Pope's army was kept in almost continual action, leaving 
little or no time for refreshment or rest; engaged thus every 
day, although supported to some extent by a part of the 
army now arriving, from the Peninsula, displaying conspicu- 



ous galLantry, and evincing tlie most heroic powers of endu- 
rance, they were nevertheless gradually forced back by Lee's 
army, the greater part of which had now arrived from Eich- 
mond, until after a last ineffectual effort, on the old battle- 
field of Bull Kun, in which fell that beau ideal of a soldier, 
the gallant Kearney, faint and foot-sore, on the second of 
September they fell back within the fortifications of Wash- 
ington. 

You will not, I am sure^ so far misunderstand me as to 
suppose, that in referring thus briefly to the campaign of Gren. 
Pope, I have any design to criticise it. I disclaim as well 
any such power as such a purpose. Whether it failed through 
his fault or that of others, or without fault anywhere, are 
questions requiring far more skill in military manoeuvres as 
well as a more accurate knowledge of facts than I pretend to 
possess. Nor is the cause of the failure at all material as 
regards its influence. I advert to it in this connection simply 
as one of those unfortunate antecedents immediately prece- 
ding the march of Lee into Maryland, which was calculated 
to exert a depressing influence as well upon the public mind 
as on the spirits of the array, on Avhich alone we now de- 
pended to oppose his passage. That army was to be com- 
posed of what remained of tliose two once formidable organi- 
zations, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Virginia, 
constituted each of them of material, better than which the 
world never saw, but returning simultaneously from the 
fields of their recent operations, with such heavy losses, so 
jaded and war-worn, so keenly sensitive, as we may well sup- 
pose, to the disappointments the country might feel in the 
hopes formed of their achievements, that in the new and for- 
midable invasion they were now so suddenly called on to 
repel, nothing but the sternest sense of patriotic duty and 
the most determined devotion to the great cause for which 
they had already sacrificed so much, could have possibly sus- 
tained them. 

In that trying hour the first provision to be made, was for 
the reorganization of these sliattered armies and the selection 
of a commandei" who could accomplish it and then lead tlie 
united host. Whatever doubt the Government authorities, 
or any of them, or the people of the country, or any part of 
them, might then or since have entertained of the military 
abilities of Gen. McClellan, there were few then and probably 
still fewer to-day, who, in the exigency then existing, would 
question the wisdom of the order that committed to him this 
command. His services in a like capacity and under circum- 



9 

stances so strikingly similar tliat tlie coincidence is worthy 
of note, ninst luive been fresh in the recollection of hoth Gov- 
ernnient and people. At the time of onr earliest gi'cat dis- 
aster, the first hattle of Bnll linn, he was condncting active 
operations in West Virginia, and the very day after that un- 
fortunate affair, a telegram from the President directing him 
to turn over his command to another, summoned him to 
Washington; placed there by the President's order in chief 
command, he was in less than a week after that leverse, bring- 
ing order out of the confusion, which for a while prevailed. 
Now, other disasters culminating on the same unfortnnate 
field, demanded again the services of a soldier, who, possess- 
ing the skill to reorganize our broken columns, could so com- 
mand their confidence as to inspire them with the enthnsiasm 
necessary to forget disaster. That the administration, with- 
out any dis})aragement to other distinguished leaders, chose 
the right man for such an emergency, few, I repeat, will at 
this day ventnre to deny. But little time remained for pre- 
paration, Lee and his army exhilarated at the thought that 
tlieir long beleagured cai)ital was at length relieved, en- 
couraged by their recent successes near Manassas, and stimu- 
lated by the i)rospect of the rich supplies, which here and 
along the fertile Cumberland Valley, awaited their approach, 
had, by rapid marching, within four days alter Pope's army 
retired within the Washington intrenchments, crossed the 
Potomac and encamped around Frederick City. McClellan, 
reorganizing as he marched, set forth to intercept him; em- 
barrassed, all the time by the doubts which enveloi)ed Lee's 
designs, fnlly alive to the various vital interests involved in 
them, compelled, tor the time, to turn his back Ujion Wash- 
ington, and yet well aware and frequently reminded that 
after all, this might be Lee's objective point, and his move- 
ments in other directions meant only as a feint, with the 
cai)ital of Pennsylvania and tlie emporium of Maryland both 
menaced by the enemy, and the citizens of each watching with 
anxious concern McClellan 's movements, with the natnral 
apprehension that the course of his march might so far un- 
cover their several cities as to open the way to Lee's approach, 
we may imagine to-day, though even now can scarcely a})pre- 
ciate, tlie responsibilities of the Union commander, and un- 
derstand some of the reasons for what, in the nervons anxiety 
of that moment, might have been considered by some as too 
tardy a ])ursuit. He was, however, on the right track; the 
van of his army reached Frederick on the twelfth of Septem- 



10 

her, Lee, with the greater part of his command, having left 
it two days before. 

Here, before following the subsequent movements of tliese 
armies, allow me to advert briefly to tlie reception that awaited 
them respectively on this new theatre of the war on the north 
of the Potomac. Subsequently, in the course of its progress, 
rebel raids and invasions were matters of frequent occurrence, 
and came to be regarded by us as a Uiing of course whenever 
our usual summer drought reduced the river to a fordable 
condition. This, however, was our first hostile invasion, 
and on that and other accounts was regarded by the people 
of the country, and especially of this State, with absorbing 
interest and anxiety. The loyal citizens of the North had 
been taught to believe that the loyalty of Maryland had, at 
best, but an apochryphal existence; that as a patriotic and. 
spontaneous impulse it was limited to a few, whilst as re- 
garded the great body of our people, it was but a pretended 
and su])erficial displaj^ induced chiefly by the presence of the 
national force. So confident in tlie early stages of the rebel- 
lion liad been the appeals of our secessionists, so exorbitant 
their claims to an assumed social and commercial importance, 
and so clamorous their denunciations of what they denomi- 
nate an odious Federal ban, forcing the action of the people 
into a channel contrary to its natural inclination, that there 
seemed for a time some excuse for such an opinion, and a few 
even of our own citizens, who had not watched that strong 
patriotic undercurrent, on Avhich, as on a full mountain 
stream, the masses of our people were from the first borne 
onward, came sometimes themselves to the reluctant conclu- 
sion that the outside estimate of our loyalty might possibly 
be true. Gen. Lee, doubtless confiding in the same repre- 
sentations, only more highly exaggerated, chanced to select 
as favorable a moment for himself as jjossible, for putting 
these theories to the test. To say nothing of the despondency 
already noticed, resulting from recent disappointments, a 
process had just commenced better calculated than anything 
that had occurred to awaken the people of the country to a 
practical sense of the grim realities of war. The President, 
on the first of July, having issued a call for three hundred 
thousand volunteers, followed it on the fourth of August with 
an order for the draft of a like number of militia; the pre- 
liminary details for that draft had been just completed, and 
the enrolling officers sent forth on their mission, as Lee made 
his appearance north of the Potomac. The order for a draft 
had something startling in the ideas it suggested; no one 



11 

wlio WHS suLject to the process liad over witnessed ils appli- 
cation; tlio country luul only a kind ol" traditional know- 
ledge of the character of the proceedinj^ — all the more excitin*^ 
for its very vagueness. 

It was in this condition of things that Lcc encamped his 
army about Frederick, and none knew Letter than himself 
how to take advantage of it. Appointing as the Provost-Mar- 
shal, cf that city a former resident, wlio, having once heen a 
person of some i)olitical influence, had, in the early days of 
the rebellion, attached himself to its fortunes, and observing 
the most scrupulous forbearance toward the citizens, he next 
issued to them a proclamation, every sentence of which was 
studiously adapted to their supposed tastes and political sym- 
pathies, and Avhich, if the facts had corresponded with the 
suggestions of Southern sympathizers and Northern skeptics, 
would have brought them in crowds to the Confederate stand- 
ard. It expressed the deepest sympathy for the "wrongs and 
outrages" they had suffered; it reminded them of the obliga- 
tions that bound them to the South by "the strongest social, 
political and commercial ties;" it depicted the profound indig- 
nation of their sister States at the spectacle they presented of "a 
conquered province;" it appealed to their State pride, alluded 
to "the military usurpations of armed strangers," the arrest 
and imprisonment of their citizens, and, "the faithful and 
manly protest" made against such outrages by a venerable 
and illustrious jurist, who, being a former citizen of this town, 
was known to be held by its inhabitants in high respect and 
esteem. Then reminding them that the people of Maryland 
possessed a spirit too lofty to submit to such a Government, it 
gave them to understand that the Confederate army had come 
among them to aid them in "throwing off this foreign yoke," 
and all that was necessary w^as their co-o[)eration Was there 
ever so fair an opportunity for a semi-loyal, secession-loving 
people, living under a Fedeial ban, threatened with a Fed- 
eral draft, and, awaiting only the opportunity to escajte and 
throw themselves into the arms of their Southern friends ! 
How did they respond to this opportunity and these eloquent 
appeals ? A Confederate officer, who seems to have accom- 
panied th,e expedition, and has since written an account of it, 
tells the story in a few words. Confessing to the disa})point- 
ment that awaited those who ex])ected the Marylanders to 
rush to arms, he tells us, that on the contrary, "they rushed 
into their houses and slammed their doors." "The rebels," 
says he, "were regarded not as friends, but enemies, the in- 
habitants Avere Union," and the ireneral sentiment was: 



12 

''Wait, wearers of the gray, the patriots in blue are coming." 
When they did come, who that saw can ever forget, what 
heart that even now does not throb the quicker as it remem- 
bers the change irom the dogged, moody, scowling and stifled 
condition in wliich the presence of tlie Confederates liad for 
four days ke})t that people tortured, to the outburst of joyous, 
enthusiastic, exuberant, and irrepressible loyalty that rung 
out from cellar to house-top as the boys in blue pressed on 
upon their reai-. All along their way, wherever they ap- 
peared, in the towns or among the log cabins of the moun- 
tain, up went the national banner; hid away, some of them, 
until this day; many, doubtless, improvised for the occasion, 
and exacting tribute, I dare say, of many a discarded ribbon 
and threadbare wrapper ; sometimes faded and soiled, it may 
have been, and utter regardless of the proportions required by 
army regulations, but every stripe and every star was there, 
and better still, every heart that beat beneath it was ovcr- 
poweringly full of the sacred cause of which it was the sym- 
bol. Yet to this day, with that and every other ordeal — and 
that was neither the first nor last — by which Maryland loy- 
alty ha^been tested, there are those who still make it the 
subject of an ungenerous sneer. I am happy, however, to 
believe tliat it never comes from that gallant host that accom- 
panied lier sons to the field, but usually from those Avhose 
well-calculated distance from the scene of conflict placed them 
as far out of the reach of information as of danger. 

When Lee evacuated Frederick on the twelfth' of Septem- 
ber, directing his course toward this county, he doubtless sup- 
posed that the reticent policy and strategic manceiupes he 
had tlius far so successfully pursued would still havcvlwin- 
fluencc on McClellan's movements, leaving him in doubt as 
to Avhere the threatened blow would ultimatel}^ tall ; but by 
one of those rare occurrences which some may call accident, 
and others a special Providence, there fell into McClellan's 
hands on the day of his arrival at Frederick, a copy of Lee's 
order of march, dated the day before he left tliat city, and 
negligently left tliere by one of his officers. This told the 
whole story of his contemplated movements, and, possessed of 
that information, a new vigor was infused into the Union host. 
Directing the cor[)s of Gen. Franklin toward Pleasant Val- 
ley, that it might, if })ossible, reach and relieve Harper's 
Fen-_y beibre it should be captured l)y tlie force Lee had de- 
tailed for the })urpose, McClellan, witli the main body of tlio 
Union Army, moved forward toward the South Mountain, on 
the track Lee himself had taken. The latter having already 



18 

])aR.sc(l on toward Boonsboro and na<i;crstowii, liearinf^ on 
the evening of the tliii-tcent]i tliat McClcUan was pusliing on 
by the way of Turner's Gap, and surprised no doubt at the 
unwonted vigor and rapidity of his present movements, feel- 
ing too that unless his progress could be arrested, his own 
well-concerted ])lans might bo frustrated, sent back Hill and 
Longstreet, with the greater portion of their commands, 
to check him at tliat mountain pass. Reaching its crest in 
advance of the Union Army, it is easy to perceive how even 
a smaller force than these two leaders then commanded could, 
with the advantage which their position secured, hold in 
check for a time our advancing column, struggling up its 
eastern slope; but our men, though encountering a murderous 
fire from the ridges around tliem, Avere not to be long arrested 
in their ])rogress. Pushing up the craggy steep, they forced 
back, ste]) by step, the Confederate riflemen, who were assail- 
ing them from behind trees and stone fences, and as the last 
rays of the setting sun fell u])on the Union banner, it was 
floating trium})hant on tlie summit of tlie ridge. It cost tis, 
however, fiiteen hundred of the flower of our army, including 
the skilli'ul and valiant Gen. Reno, who, Avith the advance 
throughout the day, was killed just before its close, while 
rcconnoitering in front. 

The morning of the fifteenth dawned upon the Union Army 
the sole occupants of the mountain, the Confederates having 
retired during the night, and McCIellan resuming his march, 
halted that afternoon on the east bank of the Antietam. The 
evening was passed in assigning positions to his several corps, 
posting his batteries, and making preparations for crossing 
next morning. Lee having previously icached and crossed 
the stream, had secured the choice of positions, an advantage 
which he did not fail to improve. A telegram from Presi- 
dent Lincoln, dated at Washington, about the hour that Mc- 
CIellan reached the Antietam, conveyed to him the Presi- 
dent's last command; in Mr. Lincoln's own earnest and sen- 
tentious style, if merely said: "God bless you and all with 
you; destroy the rebel army if possible." With this parting 
l)enediction they bivouacked that night on the eastern bank 
of the stream. On the morning of the sixteenth the rebel 
batteries, occu])ying commanding positions on the various 
heights upon this side the creek, opened fire upon our ranks, 
])ut with how little effect maybe inferred from the account of 
Gen. Hill, who, in a subsequent report of the action, describes 
it as the "most melancholy farce of the war," they being 
unable, as he says, to cope with the "Yankee guns." After 



14 

some little delay required to make an alteration of the position 
of some of the coi'ps, Gen. Hooker, Avho had been intrusted 
with the duty of turning the enemy's left flank, crossed his 
command by an upper ford, and not long afterward encount- 
ered the troops of Gen. Hood, who, in anticipation of our 
movement, had been transferred from the enemy's right wing 
to his left, to strengthen that part of his line. It was nearly 
dark liefore the troops of Hooker and Hood met, and after a 
brief but spirited contest, in which the Pennsylvania Reserves, 
under Gen. Meade, opened the action, the Confederate ad- 
vance Avas foi'ced back, Avhen night intervening, the combat- 
ants rested on their arms so near together that it is said some 
of the pickets of the two lines unconsciously intermingled. 

The battle of the seventeenth opened at the dawn of day 
on the spot where the skirmish of the previous evening had 
closed; each side seems to have looked to this point as the one 
to be particularly strengthened, and as th'?ugh anticipating 
the tremendous struggle of which it was to be the centre. 
Gen. Mansfields's corps — composed of the two divisions of 
Gens. Green and Williams — had crossed over in the night 
and taken post a mile to the rear of Gen. Hooker; while on 
the Confederate side Gen. Jackson had brought one of his 
divisions to the front, and substituting two of his brigades for 
those of Hood, that had suffered from the engagement of the 
previous evening, placed the other — the old Stonewall Di- 
vision — in reserve in the woods, on the west of the Hagers- 
town Road. 

In the whole history of the battle fields of the rebellion, it 
would be perhaps difficult to find a spot which for an entire 
day was assailed and defended with such persevering, obsti- 
nate and concentrated valor as the one to which I now refer, 
embracing the ground on both sides of the road just men- 
tioned, and in close proximity to yonder little church, that 
nestles now so ({uietly in the margin of the woods. From 
early dawn till daik the conflict surged and swelled across it 
in one continual tide, advancing and receding as reinforce- 
ments from the one side or the other came to the support of 
their comrades. It was opened on our side with the three 
divisions oi Gens. Meade, Doubleday and Ricketts, forming 
Gen. Hooker's corps, who, after an hour of fearful carnage, 
succeeded in driving back Jackson's advanced line. Before, 
however, their exulting cheers had fairly ceased, they were 
themselves compelled to retire before his veteran reserves 
that now came to his relief, supported by Hill's division and 
Hood's refreshed brigades. The corps of Gen. Mansfield 



15 

coming next to our support, reinforced tlic shattered com- 
mand of Hooker, and recovering tlie ground tliat had been 
lost, swe])t on\Yard again to the road and seized a corner of 
the woods beyond. Again, however, our tenure was hut 
temporary; both our corps commanders had fallen, the vet- 
eran Mansfield and the intre]ud Hooker, the one mortally 
and the other so ])ainfully wounded as to be compelled to 
leave the field, and their commands fearfnlly thinned, were 
again forced to iall back. Just as they were retiring, two 
divisions of Gen. Sumner's corps coming fresh upon the 
field, hurled back once more the lebel line and held for a 
time definitive possession of the woods about the little church. 
The divisions of Gens. Richardson and French falling in 
about this time to the support of Sumner, pushed valiantly 
to the front, and the tide of battle was once more flooding in 
our lavor, Avhen, just as victory seemed within our grasp, two 
fresh Confederate divisions, under McLaws and Walker, 
the one just arrived from Harper's Feri-y, and the other de- 
tached i'rom their right wing, turned again for a time the 
fortunes of the day, and once more drove back our tottering 
line over that hard-fought field. Two other of our division 
commanders had been now lost to us, the lamented Richard- 
son and the heroic Gen. Sedgwick, the former falling mor- 
tally wounded, and the latter, though wounded several times, 
still struggling to keep the field. To and fro the contest had 
now swayed for seven hours; it was afternoon, and the com- 
batants stood, as it were, at bay, each apparently confident 
of their power to defend, but doubtful of their ability to assail. 
Now, most opportunely, appeared another auxiliary on the 
scene, and we may imagine the tumultuous joy that reani- 
mated our exhausted troops as, turning their eyes toward 
yonder creek, they beheld two divisions of Gen. Franklin's 
corps, freshly arrived from Pleasant Valley and hastening for- 
ward to their support. Under their gallant leaders, Slocum 
and Smith, they swept onward in a resistless charge; run- 
ning and cheering as the}' ran, they dashed across that down- 
trodden cornfield, cleared the woods of their Confederate occu- 
pants, and at last held final possession of the ground so often 
lost and won; until 

"Night her course began and over Heaven 
Inducing darkness, grateful truce in)[iosed 
And silence on the odious din of war." 

On the extreme left of our line the Ninth Army Corps, 
under Gen. Burnside, occupied during the forenoon the left 



bank of tlic Antietam, near the lower bridge, waiting a favo- 
rable opportunity for forcing a passage. The precipitous 
character of the banks of the creek a| that point, and the ad- 
vantageous positions secured by the enemy's batteries along 
these heights to the west of it, post]ioned, it Avould seem, that 
opportunity until about one o'clock, but at that hour a gal- 
lant charge of the Fifty-first New York, the Fifty-first Penn- 
sylvania and Thirty-fifth Massachusetts Regiments, carried 
the bridge, and crossing by that and a neighboring ford, the 
whole corps passed over. Afterward assailing yonder heights 
from which a rebel battery had been pouring upon them a 
constant and destructive fire, they succeeded in dislodging the 
enemy, and it is said that some of their assailing force nearly 
reached the village; but here, as on our right, victory seemed 
to vibrate. A. P. Hill, with his division, by a rapid march 
from Harper's Ferry, which they left that morning, reached 
the ground in the afternoon, and joining his command to the 
rebel right wing, their united efforts drove back our troops 
from their advanced position; but rallying with spirit and 
supported by our batteries on the eastern bank of the creek, 
they, after desperate fighting, in Avhich Gen. Rodman, one of 
their division commanders, fell mortally wounded, were ena- 
bled still to maintain their stand upon its western shore, 
while the rebels fellback to the heights as darkness closed 
the day. 

The bridge has been known in the neighborhood ever since 
the battle as the Btirnside Bridge, which name, for its pasto- 
ral as well as patriotic significance, it will probably retain 
forever. 

Thus ended, only for want of light to pursue it farther, a 
battle that had raged for nearly fourteen hours, and which, 
beyond doubt, was the fiercest and bloodiest of the war._ 
Twelve thousand of our dead and wounded warriors, and at 
least as many more of the enemy, lay stretched upon the field. 

I have, of course, not ventured to attempt more than the 
merest outline of some of the most prominent points of the 
action. To note the movements of the various divisions, 
brigades and regiments, their marches, manoeuvres and com- 
binations, and the names of the officers who led them, even 
if I possessed the information necessary for the purpose, and 
that would insure me against doing injustice to any, would 
far exceed the limits permitted to such an address. I should 
rejoice to be able to refer by name to every man who on that day 
did his duty, from the General-in-Chief to the humblest subor- 
dinate in the ranks; but I have the satisfaction of knowing 



n 

that they are all registered elsewhere, and that neither their 
names or deeds are dependent on this ephemeral reeord. 

Viewing^ these hills and valleys as we do to-day, in theTuU 
luxuriance of their autumnal heauty, restored hy tlic indonii- 
tahle energy of their thrifty ])opulation to tlie condition they 
presented before hostile armies selected tlicm as the theatre 
of their contest, and then calling up to memory or imagina- 
tion tlie spectacle they exhibited when that contest closed, 
and the harvest of death lay heaped in horrid swaths all over 
their undulating surface, and how impressive, almost apj)al- 
ing, is the sense of the destruction wliich a lew brief hours 
had accomjdished. The day before the battle, this region, 
one of the most beautiful and jiroductive of the State, in its 
orchards and meadows, corn-fields and pastures, woodlands 
and water courses, presented 

" A happy rural scat of various view." 

that filled the eye of the visitor with delight, inferior only to 
that of the ha})py husbandmen, its owners. They, thus far 
knowing little of war save by its distant echoes, awoke on 
the morning of the seventeenth of September, 1802, to all its 
dread realities. 

"Hark to that roar, whose swift and deafening peals 
In countless echoes through the mountains ring ; 
Now swells the intermingling din; the jar, 

. Frequent and frightful of the bursting bomb; 
The falling tree, the shriek, the groan, the sliout — 
The ceaseless clangor and the rush of men 
Inebriate with rage ! Loud and more loud 
The discord grows, till pale death shuts the scene, 
And o'er the conqueror aiul the conquered draws 
His cold and bloody shroud ! " 

But let US pass from this melancholy retrospect to the 
more agreeable contemplation of the tribute due to the va- 
liant dead that lie here now at rest around us. The posthu- 
mous honors rendered to departed patriots are commended to 
us by the example of the noblest nations of antiquity, and 
are prompted by those impulses of the human heart wliich in 
all ages seek to perpetuate some record or i-eminiscence of the 
good and the brave. In the best days of tlie republics of old, 
these mortuary observances were far more frequent and im- 
pressive than in modern times; they not only embalmed the 
bodies of their warriors and statesmen, but their funeial cere- 
monies, the eulogies pronounced over them, and the monu- 
ments erected to their memory, were recognized as of national 
obligation. Their exploits were chronicled and elaborated 
by the poets and orators of their nation, and have been 



18 

handed down to the present day as a classic theme on which 
the youtliful mind still delights to dwell. It was a custom 
with the Athenians to appoint every year a time for the ob- 
servance of solemn funeral rites over the remains of their 
heroes who had iallen during the year; their bones were col- 
lected together, their friends were invited to be present, their 
remains were decorated as the fancy or affection of those 
friends might suggest, and after three days thus employed, 
these remnants of mortality were carried in solemn funeral 
pomp to a public temple prepared for their reception. Nor 
were they forgotten whose mouldering forms it had been im- 
possible to recover; for them or in memory of them an empty 
bier, the most gorgeous in the procession was especially dedi- 
cated, and a sepulchre situated in the costliest suburb of the 
city, received the sumptuous coffins, the empty and the full. 
We have as yet established no such national- anniversaries, 
nor provided any such gorgeous pageantry; no stored urn or 
cypress coffin may contain the remains of our soldiers dead; 
many of them doubtless have never yet been gathered within 
any recognized cemetery, and still occupy the shallow grave 
on the margin of the battle-field or near some hospital site, 
their last resting-place probably altogether unmarked, or if 
marked at all, only by a rough stake and occasionally a few 
rude letters; but whatever be its condition, or wherever it may 
be — on the banks of the Mississippi, or among the mountains 
of Pennsylvania, in the morasses of the Chickahominy, or in 
this quiet and well ordered cemetery — Greece nor Rome, in 
their palmiest days, ever offered up costlier sacrifices in the 
cause of human freedom, than "the hearts one pregnant with 
celestial fire" which these rude sepulchres entomb. In 
ancient times it was undoubtedly true, especially as regarded 
the honors to living men — and probably no age may be alto- 
gether exempt from the imputation — that in the costly stat- 
ues erected to, and the munificent ovations showered upon 
the successfid soldier or accomplished statesman, there lurked 
not unfrequently some personal consideration mingling with 
the motives that suggested them. Sometimes it was fear that 
l)rompted the timid thus to propitiate the wrath of the pow- 
erful. Sometimes it was a servile adulation, that in the time- 
serving sought by such means to secure a recompense, in the 
shape of other honors or emoluments to be reciprocated. It 
was doubtless the knowledge of such corruptions, and an ap- 
preciation of the motives that should always control such 
memorials, that prompted Cato, when once asked by a friend 
why no statues had been erected to him while Rome was 



• 19 

crowded with so many otiicrs, to rc]dy as ho did, that he had 
niiich ratlier liis countrymen sliouhl inquire Avliy he liad no 
statues, tlian why he had any; hut the character and cir- 
cumstances of the honors we are here to render to our patriot 
dead, not only vindicate their motive, but in that motive 
itself is found the very germ of the honor we Avould confer. 

Let statues or monuments to the living or the dead tower 
ever so high, the true honor after all js not in the polished 
tablet or towering column, but in that pure, spontaneous 
and unaffected giatitude of the people that enshrines the 
memory of the honored one in the heart, and transmits it 
from age to age long after such costly structures have dis- 
appeared. The only honor accorded to Miltiades, the great 
deliverer of Athens, was to be represented in a picture painted 
by order of its citizens at the head of the other nine com- 
manders of the heroic ten thousand, animating his followers 
to the attfick of the hostile force which outnumbered them 
ten to one; and yet that simple painting, embalmed in the 
alTcctions of succeeding generations, existed for centuries 
thereafter, while the three hundred statues which in a later 
and corrupter age were erected by the same peo])le, in honor 
of Demetrius, were all demolished, even in his lifetime. 
Thus in our heart would we enshrine the memor}^ of the 
Union soldier; generations yet unborn shall recount to their 
offspring the history of their valor, and long after brass and 
marble have crumbled into dust, shall their names be pre- 
served as the men who perished to perpetuate what their 
fathers had so struggled to establish, this heaven-appointed 
Government of po])ular freedom. 

A sepulchre, as I have said, was formerly prepared for the 
heroes of ancient Greece in the most conspicuous suburb of 
their cities; this custom, however, had one memoi-able excep- 
tion, and for which this day's solemnities on the field of An- 
tietam furnish an appropriate parallel. Such was the ex- 
traordinary valor displayed by those who fell fighting against 
the Persian host on the memorable battle field of Marathon, 
that the Athenians determined that their sepulchre should 
be separated and distinguished from those of their other 
heroes. The most honorable distinction they could suggest 
was to bury them on the field Avhere they had lallen; and 
thus ^ this little marshy plain, immortalized by this battle of 
mor(M#'^thousand years ago, was pointed out to succeeding 
ages by the lofty mound, around which many a tourist has 
since lingered, and which to this day marks the spot where 
the Athenian heroes fell. 



20 

May not imagination, as it seeks to portray the future of 
this great American Republic, without any overstraining of 
its powers, see the coming time — distant it possibly may be, 
but none -the less desirable or certain — when her sons from 
every State shall seek this little hamlet for its hallowed 
memoi'ies of the past, and coming from the South as well as 
North, leunited in fiict as well as theory, in affection as well 
as formalit}^ sliall stand here together as pilgrims at a com- 
mon shrine, and forgetting the feuds of the past, save only 
the mighty powers which their results developed, mutually 
admit, as they appeal to the records of this field, that they 
have sprung from the same stock, are united in the same 
destiny, entitled to the same respect, and animated by the 
same heroic and patriotic impulses. 

This day, my countrymen — the seventeenth of September — 
hap])ens to be the anniversary of another event in our politi- 
cal history, not less memorable than the one which to-day, 
more particularly engages our attention. In some respects 
it is so intimately connected with the considerations which 
tlie occasion suggests, that it is scarcely proper it should pass 
without notice. It was upon this day, eighty years ago, that 
the Representatives of our ancestors, with Washington at their 
liead, after four months' deliberation, adopted the Federal 
Constitution — an instrument so remarkable for the circum- 
stances that gave birth to it, for the Avonderful prosperity 
which sprung from it, for the reverence with Avhich, from 
generation to generation, it has been handed down tons, that 
there has j)robably been no record of a like character which 
has exerted so important an influence on the history of a 
Government or the rise and progress of a people. The po- 
litical condition of the country at the time of its adoption, 
in some of its aspects, was not unlike the present. We had 
just concluded a war, upon the issue of which depended the 
existence of the nation; that war combined with other cir- 
cumstances, had led to the Ibrmation of parties so widely dif- 
i'ering in some of their theories of government that tlierc 
seemed but little hope of constructing it upon any plan on 
which the two extremes would ever unite. Upon one side 
l)olitical leaders were striving to establish a strong and con- 
solidated Government, ignoring almost the Government of 
the States, while on the other were those who were for 
investing tlie latter with all substantial authority _, and mak- 
ing the General Government little more than their general 
agent. These leaders — honest, doubtless all of them, in their 
opinions — had by their continual discussion and the widely 



21 

different views tlicy promnlf^ated, l.)rou<;ht the country to a 
critical condition and filled the minds of its reflecting people 
with serious fears that the great results of the war would he 
swept away hy these jarring elements. In conse(pience alone 
of these dissensions, and the mutual jealousies and suspicions 
they engendered, four years elapsed after the close of the war 
hefore any consent could he i)rocured, either from Congress 
or the States, for the assembling of a Constitutional Conven- 
tion, and with the acknowledged imperfections of the exist- 
ing Articles of Confederation, and amidst the most disheart- 
ening embarrassments, the result chiefly of those imperfec- 
tions, the country staggered along as best it could, Avithout 
either an Executive or Judicial Department. Then at last 
there assembled that illustrious body of statesmen that framed 
the Constitution under which we live. They represented 
undoubtedly constituencies maintaining each of the theories 
of government to which I have adverted; but, mindful of the 
condition of the country, resolved, if i)ossible, to rescue it, 
and with this noble purpose resisting the impatient behests 
of ])arty, they renounced the ultraisms which distinguished 
both the consolidation and State right schools, and provided 
a Government which so judiciously combined the two princi- 
])les, and so distinctly assigned to each its proper sphere, 
that the moderate and reflecting of all ])arties united in its 
sup})ort, and the Constitution received the unanimous ratifi- 
cation of the States. After the lapse of three-quarters of a 
century, and after it had elevated us to a point of national 
importance and renown, Avhich its most ardent advocates 
could never have predicted, it was destined to encounter its 
first great trial. 

1 am not about to recur to the history of the rebellion, to 
the passions that prompted its leaders, or the metaphysical 
plausibilities by which they seduced their followers ; but it 
was only after the theories to which they had been long at- 
tached had been aJlied with more substantial and powerful 
interests, that they ventured to lay violent hands on that 
work of our fathers to which they and all of us had so often 
sworn allegiance. How it resulted it is scarcely necessary to 
remind you. The people, though occasionally differing on 
questions of construction of doubtful clauses of the Constitu- 
tion, had yet been trained in such habits of reverence for all 
its undisputed provisions, that no section and no party that 
ever ventured to express contrary sentiments, could, unless 
blinded by insane passion, have foreseen aught but ultimate 
ruin and annihilation ; and although the late rebellion, by a 



22 

combination of various interests, influences and issues, sus- 
tained itself for four years with wonderful energy, and though 
at times and to a limited extent, there were subordinate is- 
sues invoked also against it, yet the great, original, abiding 
and conclusive force that filled our armies and fought our 
battles, was the resolute purpose of the people to stand by 
the Constitution of our fathers and the Union it had estab- 
lished. Upon this line we commenced the war, and on this 
line, thanks to our noble army and its distinguished com- 
mander, Ave fought it out to signal and comj)lete success. 
But now, wh?n Ave had safely passed Avhat for the last thirty 
years had been generally reckoned the greatest danger to the 
Constitution, and that and other results of the conflict had 
filled us Avitli the highest hopes of the future and given us as 
Ave supposed the assurance of complete tranquility for the 
present, suddenly evil influences are found still at Avork; 
sometimes in the shape of fears, honest or simulated, of dan- 
gers in the future ; sometimes prompted by vindictive recol- 
lections of supposed injuries in the ])ast ; more frequently 
than either, perhaps, instigated by old party leaders avIio 
play upon these fears and memories Avith no other object than 
to recover some old office or poAver they haA'e lost, or to retain 
others they have more lately Avon ; until our exultation at the 
results Ave hai'c achieved is arrested by our apprehension of 
evils yet to come. 

Think not for a moment, my friends, that I am about to 
desecrate the solemnities of such an occasion by any discus- 
sion of the partisan topics of the day. God forbid that the 
time should ever come, or j^arty lines be ever so drawn, that 
a plea for the Constitution shall bfi reckoned as a badge of 
party fealty. The only party in Avhose behalf I would this 
day raise a voice, is the party of moderation and conciliation; 
the only party against Avhich I Avould this day warn you, is 
made up of those ultras of all sides, Avhose agitations lAive 
contributed so largely to the disasters of the past, and Avhich, 
if not arrested, may be the forerunner of others equally de- 
l)lorable in the future. Against such agitations Avould I, 
therefore, invoke, and take this as an appropriate occasion of 
doing so, the moderate, disinterested, reflecting and patriotic 
people of the country ; it Avas by this class, as I have already 
said, that the Constitution was created, and it Avill be by this 
class that it must be saved. If it still contains defects, if it 
is groAving obsolete, or keeps not up Avith the progressive 
ideas of the age, amend it by the means Avhich its OAvn provi- 
sions prescribe ; but while it is still acknowledged as our or- 



23 

ganic law, and we daily swear to it allegiance, let it be, in all 
our political controversies, the umpire wliose decrees shall he 
final. Come the perils to it whence they may, from State 
rights or consolidation, let me, on tliis the anniversary of 
its adoption, in tlie name of the men who made it, by the 
memory of the men who have died for it, upon this spot 
wliere blood has been so profusely slied in its behalf, a})peal 
to you to preserve, protect and defend it. 



